LIFE RETURNS TO JAPAN'S AUTO INDUSTRY

       Toyota has announced its first year-on-year rise in foreign production in 13 months as Japan's auto giants slowly get back on track after the worst recession in decades.
       Toyota's smaller rival, Nissan, also saw the first increase in domestic sales since July 2008, while demand for honda vehicles rose for a second straight month, helped by government incentives for people to buy new cars.
       Toyata,the world's biggest automaker, said its global production fell 8.7 per cent year on year in August, to 508,673 vehicles, but that was better than a 20.1-per-cent drop in July.
       Outside of Japan,its output rose 4.7 per cent from a year earlier ato 309,589 vehicles, while domestic sales went up 9.5 per cent to 92,621.
       Nissan said its global production dropped 13.7 per cent year on year in August,to 217,954 vehicles,after a 15.9-per-cent drop in July. But global sales were just 0.2-per-cent lower than a year earlier at 299,400 vehicles and domestic sales gained 0.8 per cent to 40,925 vehicles.
       Honda's global production was down 16.6 per cent in August from a year earlier, to 246.403 vehicles,after a 24.3 per cent slump in July. But its production in Asia and China set all-time records and domestic sales rose 4.2 per cent to 40,720 vehicles, the company said.
       Vehicle sales in Japan rose in August from a year earlier for the first time in 13 months, an auto mobile dealers' association reported.
       Domestic auto sales fell to a 38 year low in the business year to March 2009 as the global economic downturn weighed on consumer sentiment.
       The popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles,buoyed by government tax breaks,is helping to re-energise ailing world auto markets.
       In the United States, Toyota's Corolla, Camry and Prius were some of the top-selling cars under Washington's "Cash for Clunkers" programme that offered customers.cash for trading-in gas-guzzler. The programme ended last month.
       Major Japanese auto-makers have suffered losses or sharply reduced earnings because of a dramatic slump in sales, prompting thousands of job cuts.
       In another sign of life slowly returning to the troubled industry Toyota said earlier this month that it would hire about 800 temporary workers.